'Cruel' Trade of Endangered Baboons

A British animal welfare group
said today it had exposed a cruel and secretive trade in
endangered baboons which were being sold from Tanzania to
medical research organizations in the United States.

The British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection said hundreds of Olive Baboons were being trapped and held for
weeks in appalling conditions and warned that the trade was
posing a threat to the primates’ future.

“Clearly if the trade continues unregulated then the chance
is they will become even more endangered,” BUAV director of
investigations Sarah Kite told Reuters.

Trade in Baboon Meat

The U.N. Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species (CITES) classes Olive Baboons as potentially in danger
of extinction and has strict regulations governing their trade
and shipment.

Primarily found in Tanzania and Kenya, the baboons are also
threatened by the destruction of their natural habitat as well
as a growing trade in their meat within Africa.

BUAV said it will pass a report of its undercover
investigation into the treatment of the baboons on to CITES as
well as to Tanzanian wildlife officials.

According to the report, the baboons are held in rows of
crates so small they cannot stand up and can barely turn around.
They are given little, if any, food or water.

BUAV, which has carried out similar investigations into the
primate trade around the world, said the conditions were so bad
many of the Olive Baboons seen in captivity may since have died.

Trapped in Tiny Crates

“The conditions are the worst ever seen during the years
that the BUAV has been investigating the primate trade,” it said
in a report.

“[The animals] were incarcerated individually in rows of
small, dark wooden dilapidated crates, poorly constructed with
bits of wood nailed together and broken wire,” it said of a
market in the northern Tanzanian town of Arusha.

“Many peered nervously out of a small piece of wire at the
top of the crate. Others, clearly petrified, cowered and tried
to hide as they were approached.”

Kite said the baboons were then shipped to the United States
in journeys that often lasted three days. While the trade itself
was not illegal, the conditions in which the animlas were kept
were in breach of CITES rules, BUAV said.

On arrival, the baboons were used in xenotransplant
experiments where they were transplanted with pig organs — some
of which contained human genes.

No baboon had ever survived a xenotransplant experiment,
Kite said.

Wildlife authorities in neighboring Kenya banned the export
of baboons after a similar exposé in a British newspaper earlier
this year.